“The first layer of the vault was opened but the robbers failed to open the second layer because it is acetylene-proof,” Lawyer Gil Calina said.
He said the thieves apparently entered the pawnshop from the canal last Saturday. An employee discovered the robbery Monday morning.
Calina, operator of five Dignity Pawnshop branches and president of the 90-member Pawn Brokers Association in Bataan, said it pays to use a vault that acetylene torch cannot penetrate.
“Our loss was minimal. The robbers got our CCTV camera, some computers and office equipment,” the lawyer said.
He showed the first layer of the vault that suspected acetylene gang members opened a few meters from the hole the thieves bored at the concrete floor of the pawnshop.
Scene of the Crime Operatives and Balanga City police recovered inside the drainage canal near the pawnshop three long pants, other clothes, three pairs of gloves, hydraulic jack, hack saw, drill, crowbars, sledge hammer, screw drivers, flashlights and other tools. Also discovered at the dark and smelly canal were small acetylene and oxygen tanks.
Police investigators said they are “studying the probability” that acetylene gang members not from Bataan were the culprit. Police were still looking for the entrance of the robbers in the long drainage canal along the busy Bataan Capitol Road.
